The great sense of accomplishment that was expressed by CAA officials during a media tour of the spacious self-contained two-in-one houses, comes amid cries among many police officers across the country about the pathetic state of housing for police officers.

Indeed when our reporter called Police Spokesperson Andrew Felix Kawesa for a comment about the development, he expressed disbelief that this was possible.

Kawesi asked this writer thus: “They are tiled houses? Is that not a lie?” exclaimed Kawesi.

The launch of CAA’s aviation houses comes ahead of the highly anticipated inauguration of some 1000 housing units currently under construction at Nagguru.

Uganda’s Civil aviation authority and Entebbe international airport was awarded the prestigious ISO 9001:2008 quality Management systems (QMS) certificate following the compliance with stringent aviation requirements for the internationally recognized certification by the United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS).

Speaking to the press at Entebbe airport VIP lounge the director airports and aviation security CAA Uganda Engineer John Kagoro explained that the ISO 9001:2008 Explains the Civil Aviation authority has a well laid management system and process in place to meet satisfactory requirements to meet needs of both the customers and stakeholders in aviation industry.

He explained that the 9001:2008 certificate relates to the provision of aeronautical services within the flight information region of Uganda to include regulation, licensing, air navigation services , search and rescue, certification of operators , operation and maintenance of aerodromes, security and corporate support services.

John Kagoro explains that Uganda’s CAA can now be compared to any big player in the aviation industry being among the only three countries in Africa to be ISO 9001:2008 certified with the other two being Civil Aviation Ghana and Civil Aviation Tanzania.

CAA’s Director of Airports John Kagoro claimed his right to brag at the achievement when he said that the housing quarters located at Kigungu on the shores of Lake Victoria was the best in East Africa.

“We have completed the best police quarters in Uganda and we shall be housing 40 aviation police families which will ensure full time security at the airport,” said Eng. Kagoro

He explained the new aviation police quarters is a fulfillment of the organization’s board resolution that offered to improve the quality of workers. Kagoro said the units would be set a good example to other organizations about the need to improve the housing conditions of their officers, more so those that safeguard their security.

CAA launches new automatic system baggage system

Besides the launch of the aviation houses, CAA had more reasons to celebrate this week. The organization unveiled a new state-of-the-art baggage handling system with the capacity to improve security while also saving time for passengers.

The new baggage system, according to Eng. Kagoro does not require passengers to open their bags for checking, but rather the system eliminates any luggage that contains banned objects such as drugs, sharp objects.

The new baggage handling system was hailed as a great new innovation that will allow Uganda to handle more passengers and flights. It is also part of the bigger Entebbe International Modernization project that will see the expansion of the terminal building, construction of a modern cargo centre.

ISO certification a repudiation of smear campaign

The launch of two CAA projects this week came amid what top management officials described as a smear campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the organization.

According to CAA sources, the mudslinging effort that relating to the state of sanitation at Entebbe, and has been circulating on social media, was waged by one of the companies that lost out in a bidding process to clean the airport terminal.

This got CAA’s spokesperson Luggya to denounce the smear campaign by stating: “We condemn the inaccurate social media propaganda and we ask the public to ignore it for the fact that it is contrally to what is on the ground,” said Luggya.